Car Culture: Past, Present, and Future

Brandon Sun “Small
World” Column, Sunday, November 18/07Zack
Gross

About 110
years ago, in early 1898, Henry Lindfield, driving from Brighton to
London, England lost control of his new motor car and became the
world’s first traffic fatality. In more than a century
since that day, thirty million people have died in car crashes around
the world, rivaling the number of deaths caused by conflict.

Our planet has also been impacted by the existence of automobiles,
changing its face with roads, parking lots, tunnels and gas stations,
affecting how people live by transforming neighbourhoods,
transportation costs and time, and putting our environment at risk.

The United States’ National Safety Council reports that over
100,000 people die accidentally every year in that country, over
one-third of these in motor vehicle mishaps. Amongst the younger
generation (ages three to 33), vehicular crashes are the leading cause
of “accidental” death. Seat belts and air bags are
given credit by the NSC for bringing down the car crash death
rate. Other leading causes of accidental death include falls,
especially among our growing number of elderly citizens, poisoning
(mostly pharmaceutical and illegal drug related), and workplace death.

The Medical Journal of Australia reports similar experiences with car
accidents Down Under. As in North America, the main causes of
death by driving are speed, carelessness and risk-taking, but improved
car design and safety features have positively affected death and
injury rates. The MJA, however, sees a spike coming in road death
and injury as global industrialization spreads and increases car
numbers, affects overall automobile regulation negatively, and puts
vehicles into poorer road conditions. It predicts that by 2020,
road accidents will rank third in “global disability-adjusted
life-years lost,” after cardiovascular disease and depression, and ahead of cancer.

However, the MJA goes on to explore another major area of concern
– the affect of the car on public health. In a “car
dependent society," it says, and in a urban world, the proportion of
trips now made by walking, cycling or using public transport is
plummeting. The affect of this sedentary lifestyle includes
increases in individual bodyweight, cardiovascular disease, cancer and
diabetes. Only tobacco use ranks higher as a cause of
ill-health.

The authors go on to recommend strategies to governments and employers
to challenge the health and environmental affects of the car
culture. After all, an out of shape, sick population and a
degraded environment will have severe social and economic
consequences. Suggestions include better public transport systems
and incentives for owning fuel efficient vehicles, reducing urban
sprawl and commuting, fitness options and change rooms for employees,
and more common spaces for public use.

California has brought in regulations in order to deal with its high
population, large urban centres and overwhelming car culture. The
Sunshine State has more citizens than Canada and automobile ownership
is nearing one per person. Part of the problem is that, even in
urban environments, in California and elsewhere, people choose to own
SUVs, pickup trucks and other larger vehicles which guzzle gas and have
higher probability of causing injury and death in accidents due to
their size and design.

Even smaller and gas conserving vehicles are a significant cause of
human and environmental damage, as they are driven too much, impacting
on health and gasoline use, and are driven too fast.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has called on car manufacturers to
stop opposing regulations, such as those in California, and put their
efforts into improving safety and design features, including seat best
use reminders, stability control mechanisms against rollovers and
fishtailing, improved high strength supports and the production of
softer, lighter uni-body design vehicles. Mentioned in this
improved category are SUVs such as the Jeep Grand Cherokee, the Honda
CR-V and the Honda Pilot.

Michael Renner works at the Washington-based WorldWatch Institute, an
environmental think-tank. Twenty years ago, he wrote about car
culture in the first issue of WorldWatch magazine. In the current
edition of that publication, he revisits his old article to analyze,
through a rearview mirror, what he had said earlier. He sees the
same major issues facing humanity today as other critics of our
transportation systems – the unabated use of gas-guzzlers, the
sedentary nature of our lives and lack of public alternatives, our
dependence on oil and the resulting geo-political conflict, the
gobbling up of other resources to manufacture automobiles (aluminum,
iron, steel), our streets choked with cars and our air choked with
pollution, the explosion of vehicle use in once-developing countries
such as China, and the increase in speed limits to 110 km/hr or
higher. Renner wonders if developments such as the hybrid car
will be enough to stem the tide, and biofuels will improve our
situation or just create new problems.

When the first person to die in a car crash was buried 110 years ago,
likely some sober voices expressed concern about the affect of motor
vehicles on our lives and our ways of life.
“Progress” tends to roll over these kinds of people, just
as a car might run a caution sign. Policy-makers, corporate
bosses, union leaders, environmentalists, health specialists and
citizens of all kinds need to raise the level of dialogue on the issues
that car culture creates on a daily basis and, beyond talking, need to
make a different sort of progress toward a balance in our lifestyle.

Zack Gross is
program
coordinator at the Manitoba Council for International Cooperation
(MCIC), a coalition of 36 international development organizations
active in our province.